School Counselors Views on the Applicant's Needs and Difficulties Relevant to the Course Selection Process of the University Entrance Examination (Konkoor)

chool counselors have an important role in guiding of students for entrance exam, and their academic needs, problems and difficulties. Indeed high school students perceive counselors as the first source of reliable information for their problems. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the opinions of school counselors about needs, issues and difficulties in the admission process via the university entrance exam, and the discipline selection. Data gathered from 143 school counselors via an open ended questionnaire and paired comparison questionnaire. Based on three research questions, applicant's needs and difficulties and also the ways to fix them were investigated. The data were analyzed in two stages. The findings showed that the applicant's ranked order needs include awareness of the employment possibility in each of the academic disciplines, familiarity with the disciplines and universities, availability of counseling centers and skilled counselors, familiarity with the course selection methods, information about course selection, avoiding factors and conditions cause anxiety, access to applicant's choices in previous years. According to respondents unfamiliarity with the academic disciplines and their future career choice and study, selection constraints (interest, parents, grade and rank, separation from family, etc.), restricted access to consultancy centers and experienced consultants, lack of adequate information about the fields and facilities in universities, lack of information about technical points in course selection, difficulty in informing and educating on the course selection the previous years are among the main difficulties and needs of the applicants.